kemmler3D
Master Contributor
This is the correct answer, Dolby Atmos is a brand as well as a set of audio specs. So Atmos is whatever Dolby says it is.
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How Is This Dolby Atmos?
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Yorkshire Mouth
Major Contributor
Another attempt to explain it, as per Matt in post 14.
The older versions of sound format, going back to stereo, is that the mixer decided what goes in each channel. So with stereo, this comes out of the left speaker, whilst this comes out of the right.
That’s replicated in 4.0 quad, 5.1 and 7.1.
It’s different with Atmos. With that format, the mixer has a 3D image of the room, and says that a particular sound comes from a particular, and exact position in the room.
That’s what’s in the mix, the position of the object, not the position of the speaker.
When your Atmos devices receives the signal, it knows how many speakers you have, and where, and decides where to send each object - which speakers and at what level, etc., based on what it knows about your speaker placement.
If you have no height speakers, it knows it can’t just send overhead sounds to each of the normal speakers evenly with nothing applied, and instead applies psychoacoustic principles and mixing techniques like phase, to the height element of the object’s sound.
So Atmos isn’t 5.1, 7.1, 11.1, or 11.2.4. It’s a mix of objects in space, which your decoder decides to redistribute, depending on your speaker configuration and room.
The older versions of sound format, going back to stereo, is that the mixer decided what goes in each channel. So with stereo, this comes out of the left speaker, whilst this comes out of the right.
That’s replicated in 4.0 quad, 5.1 and 7.1.
It’s different with Atmos. With that format, the mixer has a 3D image of the room, and says that a particular sound comes from a particular, and exact position in the room.
That’s what’s in the mix, the position of the object, not the position of the speaker.
When your Atmos devices receives the signal, it knows how many speakers you have, and where, and decides where to send each object - which speakers and at what level, etc., based on what it knows about your speaker placement.
If you have no height speakers, it knows it can’t just send overhead sounds to each of the normal speakers evenly with nothing applied, and instead applies psychoacoustic principles and mixing techniques like phase, to the height element of the object’s sound.
So Atmos isn’t 5.1, 7.1, 11.1, or 11.2.4. It’s a mix of objects in space, which your decoder decides to redistribute, depending on your speaker configuration and room.
That's the thing I think many people don't understand. Many people dismiss the format based on the failure of old attempts to introduce surround-based music, but this time around the format will succeed just based on how popular it will be using headphones or soundbars as playback systems. There are no longer any acquirements of a particular number of speakers placed around the listeners in the living room, which was always doomed to be a failure as the WAF is very low and the cost is high for a high-quality surround system.
Good description.
And because an image can help, these are screenshots from the production software that allows you to place sounds in space:
From:
https://professionalsupport.dolby.c...ting-Started-with-Ableton-Live?language=en_US
But Atmos can still have bed channels from 2.0 to 7.1.2. These are fixed and are basically the same as the old surround channels. A vast majority of Atmos audio will primarily use these and only use the object channels sparingly. Especially for streaming content, there isn't a lot of bandwidth left for the object channels, and the bed channels form the basis for fallback for systems that do not yet support Atmos.
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So... they call it a 911 soundbar but it's made from a 992 exhaust. Aren't there truth in labeling laws wherever this comes from?Than get one of these.
911 Soundbar 2.0 Pro – Ltd. | PORSCHE SHOP
2.1.2 Virtual surround sound system made from an original 992 GT3 exhaust system.shop.porsche.com
Kidding.
Oh.
Like MQA.
Got it!
So... they call it a 911 soundbar but it's made from a 992 exhaust. Aren't there truth in labeling laws wherever this comes from?
Oh.
Like MQA.
Got it!
Nope
MQA was really a flawed file compression scheme.
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... but it was definitely (and as you said) a package (or file type) for delivering audio data.
OK, here's the thing. Someone (besides manufacturers and others with a financial stake in new formats) must like or want multichannel audio.
I am not one of those folks.
The rotating door of multichannel formats since the late 1960s suggests to me a solution in search of a problem.
I am tilting against windmills (or urinating into the wind) here. I've spoken my piece.
I'll look for the "multichannel presentation of 3D audio finally solved" thread and read it eagerly.
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Yorkshire Mouth
Major Contributor
I think they need to stop worrying about any further steps forward in the mix.
They really need to start thinking about how to get the extra speakers into a room.
There are basics they’re not getting right. You know those height modules they sell to put on your front L&R? They really should all have a shield at the front, so as little as possible direct sound goes straight from speaker to ear, and you hear as much of the ceiling reflection as possible. But while some do that, many don’t. It’s madness.
But what they really need to work on is a speaker that’s flat, light, and hideable. There have been some excellent on-wall speakers where you can customise the image. These really need working on and popularising. And heights on your ceiling really don’t need to go very low frequency, and could be very thin.
They really need to start thinking about how to get the extra speakers into a room.
There are basics they’re not getting right. You know those height modules they sell to put on your front L&R? They really should all have a shield at the front, so as little as possible direct sound goes straight from speaker to ear, and you hear as much of the ceiling reflection as possible. But while some do that, many don’t. It’s madness.
But what they really need to work on is a speaker that’s flat, light, and hideable. There have been some excellent on-wall speakers where you can customise the image. These really need working on and popularising. And heights on your ceiling really don’t need to go very low frequency, and could be very thin.
Andysu
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dolby labs , 12 years of atmos is a total waste of my listening time , it is 100% fake 3d immersive gimmick , it doesn't support true below floor surround , the stage channels are outdated from , since 1940 fantsound , then came late 1950/60's with five screen sound with is still in use to day at selected 70mm or some atmos cinemas , it is outdated in this time of directional sound , the basic speakers layout for atmos such a boring listening , the speakers sound like , " hot spots " its boring and i'm fed up listening to rubbish atmos , sure Dolby Stereo ain't perfect but i much rather now listen to , Dolby Stereo optical tracks or discrete 70mm mag track versions on dvd , Laserdisc with actual theatrical mixes in AC-3 , i had enough of the 4k disc format itself and its fad fake gimmick , atmos from dolby labs
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Dolby Atmos is an attempt to push a proprietary format onto the marketplace to solve a problem that was already solved with Ambisonics, a sound field format that encodes a sound field, not channels and speaker positions, but can be decoded into any number of speakers in any configuration, so an Ambisonics mix can be decoded to stereo, mono, binaural, 5.1, 7.1, speaker dome array, anything. But Ambisonics has one serious flaw as far as Dolby is concerned... the patents expired a long time ago, all the technology is in the public domain, and ironically, it solves the sounds from below. The format has been used for many immersive audio applications. It offers many advantages over Atmos, but it can’t be used for vendor lock in.
kemmler3D
Master Contributor
I wonder if these MEMS transducers will ever amount to anything beyond IEMs... if so, we might see the day.
So where is the software to encode ambisonic? We have the microphones to RECORD ambisonic and we have tools that convert Atmos mixes to Ambisonic but making that first immersive cinema mix is tough.
I think the market is relatively smart. Look at MQA, FLAC, Linux, SACD, DVD-A, USB-C…
When things are pure attempts to introduce vendor lock in, they don’t succeed. When open source solutions are effective, they gain acceptance.
Dolby Atmos has the benefit of software tools that are favored by audio engineers over ambisonic tools. If Ambisonic was Linux and Dolby Atmos was AmigaOS, it would be a different story.
It’s even like OpenOffice versus actual Office.
Ambisonics remains a niche format but oh-so versatile for content producers. ProTools or Reaper (https://www.reaper.fm/) are the DAWs most widely used for Ambisonics mixing due to the ability to accommodate up to 64 tracks for working with HOA (Higher Order Ambisonics) up to 7OA (7th Order Ambisonics). The most extensive suite of plug-ins for working with Ambisonics materials is the IEM Plug-in Suite, https://plugins.iem.at/, it includes Ambisonic plug-ins up to 7OA, it was created by staff and students of the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) (https://iem.kug.ac.at/). I’ve also uses the a1/a3 Bundle of Ambisonics plug-ins from SSA Plugins, https://www.ssa-plugins.com/, along with Harpex-X, https://harpex.net/, for extracting virtual microphones and binaural decoding. What’s amazing about Ambisonics is you can mix mono and stereo and MS and Ambisonics B-format (W, X, Y, Z) 1OA and other sources and place them where you want in the 3D sound field and then export to any number of formats.
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